On
October 25th at 3:30 PM, a Soviet Life reporter managed to corner
Pete on the eve of his departure from the Soviet Union. In spite of the fact
that he had been badgered for the whole month of his stay by news reporters, TV
and radio commentators and cameramen, he was most cordial and gave our reporter
his impressions. Here they are, word for word:
Here
I am sitting in the Ukraina Hotel, Moscow, on this October 25, 1965 and hoping
that I can form sentences clearly that make sense. I'd like to put down my
impression of the USSR after having visited it with my wife for three weeks this
year and last year with the whole family for four or five weeks. And I hope,
perhaps, these observations will be of interest, because every time you have a
juxtaposition of things that aren't usually juxtaposed, new ideas come from it.
That was one of the things that Sergei Eisenstein said: The juxtaposition of two
film shots represents a new idea.
So
here we are, two Americans from the biggest and richest capitalist country in
the world visiting a country still bigger, geographically, still bigger in
numbers of people, but far younger in many ways. Well, I'll give what
impressions I can. Of course, you who read this may learn more about me that
about the Soviet Union because, naturally, my own prejudices conic into it. So
let me tell you who I am first, so you know how many grains of salt to take with
whatever I say. I think that's really the most honest thing. Nobody in this
world can be objective, so the most honest thing to do is admit what your
prejudices are, and then the listener or reader can discount them.
I've
all my life felt friendly to the idea basic to this country's economy, that is,
that you could create a society without having to have a class of rich people to
run it. On the other band, of course, certain things may seem strange to me
because, perhaps, I see them from the viewpoint of an American who lives a
relatively comfortable life with plenty of food and money in his pocket to buy
anything necessary, living near New York with its multitude of stores chock full
of things to buy - if you have the money. These things must be taken into
consideration. Also, remember we've only been in the Soviet Union for a few
weeks, and you couldn't possibly get more than a glimpse of it in that time. You
know the story of the seven blind men and the elephant. The old story is just as
true now as it ever was.
The
king received a message that a sea captain had larded on the coast with a
strange animal called an elephant. So he called his seven wise men and said: 'Oh
seven wise men, go down to the seaport and report to me what manner of beast
this elephant is. The seven wise men got into the king's carriages, clip-clop,
clip-chop, clip-clop, and they went to the ship. But they'd been reading books
so damn long they were blind as bats. When they got there, one felt the legs of
the elephant. He said, "hmmmmmmmm." Another one felt the side.
He said, "hmmmmmmm." Another one felt the ear. . ."hmmmmmmmm."
Another one felt the tusk, another one felt the trunk, another one pulled on the
tail - bad luck for him. Well, they all got into the carriages and went back to
the palace. They bowed low and said, "Your Majesty, this elephant is very
much like the trunk of a tree." Another one said, "Why, you're very
much mistaken. I felt it myself. It's like the side of a building." The
third started screaming, "Why you're both crazy! I felt it - it's like the
large leaf of a plant." The next one said, "No, it's like a smooth
spear!," another one said, "No, it's like a huge snake!" Now they
were all shouting, and the last one screamed a the top of his lungs, "No,
it's like a rope that hangs down from heaven, and you pull on it and the whole
heavens open up."
The
moral, of the story, of course, is that the truth is many sided. And you can't
jump to conclusions. And I often feel like one of the seven blind men when I
visit a country for only a few weeks and somebody asks me what it's like. After
all, I know only a few sides of it.
Well,
what we did see was very interesting. We saw huge modern cities way out in the
middle of Asia - we hadn't expected to see that. The landscape out there is very
much like our Rocky Mountain region. If I'd closed my eyes, blinked a couple of
times and looked at the hills, I would have thought I was out in Utah, or
Nevada, or parts of California. We were very pleased, both of us, to see Asian
and European people living side by side with their own ways of life. Side by
side. Their own languages, own ways of dressing, eating and many other customs
which, I'm sure, are quite different. We saw children walking the streets hand
in hand in totally different costumes, just like their fathers and mothers, with
no thought of self-consciousness, and this I think, is wonderful. In my own
country I've often wished that people did not feel self-conscious about having
some way of dressing a little bit different from the European way.
But
if the average American Indian were to leave his home say, a Navaho from
Arizona, and come to the big city, he'd feel very out of place if be still had
on his blanket and his beads and bracelets. People would turn and stare at him
and say, "Why doesn't he put on clothes like a civilized person is supposed
to?"
So
what I saw in the Asian republics of the USSR was a great satisfaction to me. I
think it proves that Kipling was wrong when he said East is East and West is
West and never the twain shall meet." He was wrong, it's not true, they can
meet. And let's hope that in the world to come they'll be meeting more and more.
I
was surprised by the bright-colored clothing that Soviet people wore. In America
I was often told that Russia is a drab country, that everybody dresses in browns
and blacks because they're scared of wearing anything bright. Walking down the
average Soviet street, you see the brightest colors you ever saw: reds, yellows,
greens, blues, purples, pinks, sometimes all on top of each other. We saw a
young man in the Frunze airport with a green hat, a purple jacket, and a red
suitcase - bright, all of them, bright.
Now
it's perfectly true that the average Soviet citizen can't, as yet, afford the
many luxuries the average American can. The average food on their table is not
as fancy. So I was happy to note that even though Russia doesn't have the stores
overflowing with different commodities that American cities have, neither does
it have the slums. This is important to me because, while I love my own country,
I must confess that there's not a city I can go to where, in parts of the town,
the streets are not littered with trash, the houses are unpainted and
dilapidated, and the people live with a sense of demoralization and lack of hope
because they think there's no chance for them ever to get ahead.
I
was amazed at the number of bookstores everywhere. My gosh, it sure is a
book-reading country. I was startled by the huge editions that are printed. John
Cheever, whose novels in the states have probably sold no more than around
100,000 copies, was translated into Russian — the minimum edition, 100,000
copies. Yes, it’s a book-reading country, and I hope it stays that way,
because no matter how fine TV, radio and movies are, books are such a flexible
medium of communication. You can read a book slowly or fast, you can come to a
page you want to stay on, you can read it over and over again, or, if you’re
bored, you can skip a few pages. That’s just not possible with movies or TV.
Of course, you can overdo book reading, too, but that’s another question.
Well,
I hear somebody saying “Hey, so far you’ve been telling us what you like
about the country. What don’t you like?”
It’s
true, there are dark sides as well as bright ones. My guess is, though, that
whatever the dark sides I see, they’re probably the same the Russians see. For
instance, the lack, as yet, of enough money to do all the things one wants to
do. Perhaps the lack of freedom to travel abroad one would like to have — many
things that are obvious to most people without my naming them. Let me instead
describe how my wife and I built our own house 16 years ago and the problems
that we tried to solve — perhaps in some way this may be parallel to the
problems Russians have in their own huge country, problems that they too have
faced and tried to solve.
Sixteen
years ago my wife and I were very broke. But we wanted to move out of New York
City. We both had been born and raised in the country, and we wanted our
children to be born in the country. I was a musician, I didn’t have an
eight-hour day job, so I really didn’t have to be right in the city. I could
live where I could drive in once every few days, once every week or two, but I
didn’t have to live in the city. So we looked around, but every time we saw a
house that was up for sale, we’d find it was too expensive: 5,000 dollars,
10,000 dollars or more, even for an old house. Once we found an old barn, it was
a wreck — but 3,000 dollars. . . . We didn’t have it.
We
borrowed some money from relatives and bought a little land. Just a bunch of
trees and rocks on the side of a hill. I was young and strong, and I chopped
down the trees and built a cabin, a log cabin very similar to what Russian log
cabins are, although not as pretty, not with those lovely little designs over
the windows. It was one big room, and we and our children squeezed into it.
There was our kitchen, living room, dining room, our desks with books, our beds
— one thing on top of the other — closets, chairs, everything. But we
squeezed in and, because we built it ourselves, didn’t owe anybody. You see,
both of us knew friends who had wanted a house of their own, and they had
borrowed money from the bank for it. And somehow they’ve never gotten out of
debt. They seem to pay all their lives — 20, 30, 40 years later they’re
still paying, paying, paying, paying, paying the bank because they borrowed in
the beginning. And we did not want to do that.
So,
though the house was very small and crowded, at least we weren’t paying for
it. We’re grateful for that, glad we did it that way – on our own, not
depending on anybody. Of course, because I wasn’t very expert, to say the
least, at building a house, the corners weren’t square, the floors weren’t
level, and the roof leaked. Whenever it rained, I was going around with pails
under different places — drip, drip, drip, drip through the roof.
Nevertheless, it was a house, and we were in it. We didn’t have enough money
to put paving stones outside, so every time we walked into the house we tracked
mud all over the place. Mud, mud. Every spring and every fall. But that wasn’t
the biggest mistake we made. This was a normal mistake to make — building a
house where the corners weren’t square and the floors weren’t level.
But
a few years later we got some money and we thought, ”Now let’s fix up our
house. We want it to be a little more stylish.” We looked in the magazines and
we saw that just the thing, just the stylish thing, was these new aluminum
windows — you turn the crank and they open up. They looked so fancy we
thought, “That’s just what we’re going to get.” So we bought one, tore
out the old window and put the new one in. And for a year we were very proud of
it. We thought we were real stylish. But, you know, that was one of the biggest
mistakes we made. Oscar Wilde was the person who said there’s nothing so ugly
as fashion. He said fashion is a form of ugliness that has to be changed once
every few months because it’s so unbearable. No, we had not made our house any
more beautiful with that aluminum window. We just tried to make it more
fashionable, and instead it was kind of silly, it didn’t fit in. That aluminum
didn’t fit in with our nice log cabin. Yes, it was a mistake. Some of the
furniture also didn’t fit in.
Now,
years later, I think we’ve learned a little bit better, and we realize that
some of our old American traditions of building with wood are still about as
beautiful as anything can be. So when we added a new room to make the house a
little bigger, we added it in such a way that it harmonized. And now we have
enough money for paving stones, and don’t track mud in on the floor all the
time. We’ve got a little more room, we’re not living all on top of each
other.
I
don’t know if this parallel really means very much in describing the darker
side of the Soviet Union — a house is no way near as complicated as a country.
But maybe it does have some parallels.
Probably
the best things I’ve seen in the Soviet Union are the things that have truly
been developed on their own. Some of the less good things are, I think,
imitations. Like, say, the design of cars. The same thing probably goes for
other parts of the country’s life.
Well,
I’ll close this little attempted discourse with something that I talked about
with a young lady interpreter the other day. I’ve been giving concerts here
with the help of a film projector to flash the words on a screen while I’m
singing so the audience can understand a little more of the meaning of the songs
without having to pause for a translation. Now, the projector was an idea I
worked up myself, but there are some details that didn’t work out quite right.
The lens did not stay quite in focus, the picture wasn’t bright enough. I said
to this young lady, “The basic principles of the machine are good, but there
are still some bugs in it.” She said “Bugs? What do you mean?” I said:
“Well, that’s an American term we use. Whenever you invent a machine, there
are a lot of little details that may not work quite right. The basic principles
of the machine are good, but little parts don’t fit together. All the little
details have to be worked out. Supposing you have a new car model that comes
out. When it’s just off the assembly line, it’s liable to have lots of bugs
in it. You better iron out the bugs – the doors may not close right, something
may fall off.”
She
said, “Could this be true of a social system, as well as of a machine?”
I
said, “Yea, yea, you’re right.”